Financial Health / Inclusion

Financial Health & Inclusion

Garanti Bank, while offering a wide variety of products, processes and services, also plays an important role in helping its customers manage their finances. The Bank provides information on its customers’ financial status, while also providing guidance on their needs as outlined below:

Financial Health

Research studies indicate that customers are seeking financial balance because of the effects of increasing consumption and may sometimes experience difficulties in maintaining their financial health.

In order to support the customers’ of the Bank’s financial sustainability under the current global and national market conditions, Garanti Bank began to offer products and services that will help the Bank’s customers;

Manage their financial lives through personal interaction;

Develop a tendency to save; and

Realize their short- and long-term targets.

Garanti is working through all channels so that its customers have easy access to their financial statuses. In this context:

Customers without access to the internet can easily reach the Bank’s banking service and products through the Alo Garanti channel,

Offers such as personalized loans and savings are easily communicated through dynamic offers and systems such as IVN,

With the option of QR withdrawal, the possibility of withdrawing cash without the necessity to carry their debit and credit cards are offered to customers,

Since March 2016, money transfer without using internet or mobile banking is enabled through Money transfer via BİP messaging application. This way Garanti Bank customers can transfer money to people who are unbanked also via this new channel.

Online Banking Personal Finance Management

The Bank offers a need-oriented personal finance management service with personalized content, which makes it easier for the customers to track their financial status and have full control over their finances as well as making the communication between the Bank and the customer more transparent.

The Bank also provides many options to allow its customers to manage their personal finances on the internet via the Internet Banking website as explained by the following examples:

Assets and Liabilities: This section lists the assets and liabilities of our customers in product groups. Our customers can review the details of their products and check the relative performance of all their assets in the graph view.

Income and Expenditures: In this section our customers can list their income and expenditures by term and product groups. In addition, they can set spending limits for products or by tagging transactions, getting notifications when these limits are exceeded.

Cash Flow: In this section, our customers can see their liabilities, pending payments and income from previous terms. Customers can also use the balance moving feature to see how their balance will be affected by reduced debt in the future.

Mobile Personal Finance Management:

The Bank provides many options to allow its customers to manage their personal finances on their mobile phones including the following:

Money Bar: Based on previous spending, income and payments of the user and scheduled transactions, the approximate balance that will remain in the account for the current month is estimated. Moreover, suggestions are provided for users to save money or to borrow money if needed.

Cash Tank: Maximum and minimum limits are determined for users’ credit cards and spending accounts. In this way, users are notified when they exceed their limits with a notification that is sent to their mobile phones.

Spending: With “My Spending”, all the expenditure made from Garanti Bank account or card can be listed and easily tracked. Specific categories on spending are shown and users are warned before they exceed their limits. Users also arrange their limits based on their spending goals.

Filter and Graphs: With the filter option, users can change their spending criteria in order to analyze their financial situations in detail. Moreover, each spending is categorized and each category can be visualized by graphs.

Mobile Banking Notifications: Within Mobile Banking and iGaranti applications, there is a system which triggers push notifications to be sent, as well as SMS and e-mail, when the credit card payment date approaches or money is received. Moreover, users can be reminded of current campaigns through notifications.

Support for Financial Planning

In the current volatile markets, which may reflect increased uncertainty, customers increasingly need expert opinions and support in order to plan their financial future. For this necessity, Garanti offers financial planning services to its Retail and Private Banking customers.

As part of this service, customers are classified into specific risk groups and the Bank provides portfolio recommendations suitable for each risk group. Accordingly, customers can gain access to professionally prepared investment proposals and can choose the proposals that best fit their risk-reward profiles. Likewise, a wide array of alternatives is offered for personal pension funds as part of the Bank’s special pension services. These alternatives offer customers the opportunity to draw up the best pension plan for themselves and thus help them look to the future with confidence.

Products that Promote Saving Garanti Bank aims to raise the number of savings products in a bid to raise the propensity to save in Turkey. With this target, the Bank offered the following products in 2015:

“Net Savings Account”, which allows a flexible start-up to saving for customers who have difficulty saving but are seeking to acquire the habit,

The “Spend and Save” product which offers customers the chance to turn credit card expenses into savings.

Investment Accounts

Financial Inclusion: Solutions for the Unbanked Population

According to World Bank Global Financial Inclusion data, 2 billion of the world’s population do not have access to financial services offered by financial institutions. In Turkey, where 42% of the adult population lack access, Garanti offers its products and services to customers as well as to non-customers without access to financial services.

CepBank Money Withdrawal: CepBank Money Withdrawal was developed to capture standalone transactions of customers in a convenient way and to allow immediate withdrawal from any Garanti ATM without the need for a credit or debit card. Non-Garanti customers can perform their transactions without credit or debit cards through Garanti ATMs as well as Garanti customers. A few examples of cardless transactions are explained below.

Cardless Bill Payments: Close to 90 thousand bills from hundreds of companies ranging from utilities to mobile credit top ups are paid cardless through ATMs.

Cardless Money Deposit to an Account: Depositing money into a Garanti account is possible with only an account number as this can be done cardless at an ATM. The card owner can deposit money into their account as well as another person’s Garanti account.

Garanti Bank aims to include people who make savings without benefiting from financial services. Gold Branches and Gold Service Point Jewelries: Our customers’ physical scrap gold is accepted in Gold Branches and Gold Service Point Jewelries so that the assets can be registered in the banking system and in the economy as a whole. The Gold Branches in Turkey accept customers on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Saturdays whereas Gold Service Point jewelries serve customers every day of the week.

Customers can easily perform gold account transactions through their TL or US Dollar accounts. Our customers can access their Gold Accounts 24 hours a day through Garanti Online Banking, Garanti ATMs, via Alo Garanti line 444 0 333 and from Garanti Branches.

Gold Time Deposit Account: The Gold Time Deposit Account allows customers to earn interest on their gold investments in gold terms. Customers who wish to make their investments in gold terms, preserve their gold investments and to earn interest can open a Gold Time Deposit Account with a minimum of 100 gr of gold.

Gold Saving Account: With the Gold Saving Account, customers can regularly save the amount of gold they want by making payments with their credit cards or through their deposit accounts.